Summary: | Fig mosaic disease is spread worldwide and is believed to have a viral etiology. Divergent isolates of grapevine badnavirus 1 (GBV1), named fGBV1, were discovered on <i>Ficus carica</i>, <i>F. palmata</i>, <i>F. virgata</i>, and <i>F. afghanistanica</i> in the fig germplasm collection of the Nikita Botanical Gardens, Russia, expanding the list of viruses infecting this crop. The complete genomes of five fGBV1 isolates from <i>F. carica</i> and <i>F. palmata</i> trees were determined using high-throughput and Sanger sequencing. The genomes comprised 7283 base pairs, contained four overlapping open reading frames, were 99.7 to 99.9% identical to each other, and related to GBV1 (83.2% identity). The reverse transcriptase RNase H genome regions of fGBV1 and GBV1 share 84.6% identity, indicating that fGBV1 is a divergent isolate of GBV1, which was found on the new natural hosts from a different family (<i>Moraceae</i>). Further, fGBV1-specific primers were developed to detect the virus using RT-PCR. Survey of 47 trees, belonging to four fig species and 14 local and introduced <i>F. carica</i> cultivars, showed the high fGBV1 prevalence in the collection (93.6%), including trees with no obvious symptoms of fig mosaic disease.
|